


The Autumn People

by Sir_Redcrosse



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 09:50:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Redcrosse/pseuds/Sir_Redcrosse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Hannibal (TV) AU somewhat parallel to that of the novel 'Something Wicked This Way Comes,' where Will is a lonely Librarian who lives alone with his dogs in a town which hates him because he sees all to well how fake they are and refuses to play their games.</p><p>He may not play /their/ games, but what if he gets trapped in someone else's game with increasingly high stakes?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. He Who Treads Upon the Grasses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dogs are uneasy as someone or something is on its way to Green Town, Illinois; Will, however, couldn't be happier to see his childhood friend.  
> But if not her, who or what is making Will's dogs so nervous?

The Green Town Library door shut with a soft ding as Will Graham closed up and began the long walk home. He’d counted the number of minutes it took to get back to his place, back to his hungry pups, numerous times; he didn’t even have to average them because they were within seconds of each other. The people in town were so leery of him he didn’t have to worry about running into anyone he knew and possibly having to interact with them.

Part of him wanted them to stop him; stop him from arriving home on time, and most of all to stop whispering behind his back. He could, of course, reach out himself, but he’d tried that before and boy did that end badly. _Whatever, fine_ , he thought. _I’ll just take an extra five to look at the horizon on the way up._ Stopping in front of the tobacco shop, he looked up at the sky and saw the clouds gathering, the winds blowing and making the trees whistle a lonely, somber tune. The shopkeeper had tried his hardest not to let Will notice him grimacing at this… _freak_ stopping in front of his shop, but Will felt it. He always did. When he was younger, he’d made no secret of it, and now this is what he had to show for it: a whole town that tried very hard not so much to ignore him as to hide their loathing; and they failed just as hard as they tried. Their eyes spoke volumes when on odd days they would look at him with a wide grin, and every line in their irises read ‘insincere,’ which not only hurt Will but hurt them as well for his seeing the guilt in their eyes; guilt which he had accidentally put there himself. Any _normal_ person would play the game, would keep up this façade of genteel sociability, but something inside him simply would not allow him to call a club a spade.

Trash blew down Main Street; odd bits of paper and leaves, from what he could see. A few unsupervised kids who hadn’t noticed him yet played around, acting like the wind, thinking of themselves as primal forces of nature; omnipotent and ever-present, the gods of Green Town who cleaned the streets and made the bushes blow with just a breath. Will understood what they felt, but he couldn’t relate; he had never been an authority or held claim to that youthful innocence. He’d had a friend, a single friend, but she had moved away to go to college in Chicago. She was going to be _somebody_ , but Will was left behind with his books and his dogs. In a sense he _was_ an authority, but he was less of a power and more of a persuasion. He could suggest books and direct the lost, but it was no replacement for his only friend; now had a doctorate degree and a successful practice in Chicago while he was still the head librarian, which he’d been since Mrs. Mackintosh retired during his senior year of High School and appointed him, mostly out of pity, to her old post.

Perhaps the people of Green Town didn’t hate him; perhaps they just didn’t know how to approach him, how to handle him. Will had thought about that sometimes, but dismissed it because “Well what am I going to do about it?” The few times he had tried to do something about it had not gone well and he had rather lost hope of winning over the townsfolk.

When he reached home, the sun was setting and the sky was turning into a rich maroon color and the dogs were howling terribly. Will could tell something wasn’t right, but there wasn’t anything visibly wrong, so he assumed something must’ve just spooked them. In the distance he could barely make out the sound of an ice-cream truck, so maybe that was it; he wasn’t fond of them either, in fact he hated anything that might remind him of a circus.

Across the fields below the road to his house, flyers of some sort danced lightly on the wind, sometimes landing only to fly once more, high into the sky. It was almost as if there was a cloud of them, centering on the town and then blowing outwards into the surrounding fields and woods, wrapping themselves around branches and the tall grasses.

Sitting on the front porch, surrounded by eleven dogs of various colors and heights, Will listened as the wind swelled in voice from a low, dull groan to a high pitched wail while the maroon sky faded into a light-polluted dark blue. Despite the sound, the wind couldn’t have been much stronger than a powerful breeze with the occasional gust brushing through his curly hair. The dogs stayed close to him and to the front door, howling  at the chimes and at the wind and at the moonless night filled with sounds which only sounded natural when you weren’t paying attention. There was a noticeable absence of nocturnal activity, and as the wind began to gain a chilly bite, Will at last became persuaded by his dogs to retire inside, be it for warmth or safety.

It was just as he stood up that one of those flyers stuck to his screen door. The dogs bayed at it as if it was an unwelcome guest, but as soon as Will offered the open door to them, they stampeded inside and kept their peace.

Will Graham was not one for allowing litter to foul up his yard so he opened the door and grabbed the slip of paper before it blew away into the fields. He gave it a quick once-over and saw the name “Lounds’ & Lecter’s” in large, garish type, followed by what appeared to be the words “carnival” and “mirror,” and by that time he had already balled it up and left it in his pocket as he went in to feed his dogs.

The twelve of them, having eaten, headed upstairs and tried very hard to go to sleep, despite the sound of cranks from outside. Most of the dogs had dragged their beds over to the interior wall, while a few even jumped in bed with Will, only to be put back on the floor, where they would make a temporary shelter for the night under his bed, safe from the prying eyes of a starless sky.

He had only just fallen asleep when he heard a car pull up his driveway, followed by a somewhat familiar voice calling out his name, asking him where the spare key was. Will got up and threw open the window, letting in a freezing blast of air that set all the dogs to howling.

“Doctor Bloom, you know damn well where the key is,” he shouted down, grinning from ear to ear. “What brings you back home? Or more specifically to mine? It’s not like you to not call ahead, you know how I—“

“Will, I can’t understand a word, this wind has really picked up,” Alana shouted back, motioning towards the door. Will was already there to open the porch door when she reached the top step; he stood there in the doorway with this expression frozen somewhere between joy and shock that didn’t really sum up either.

“Well aren’t you gonna let me in? It’s freezing,” she said as she lightly nudged him to the side and barreled into the warm house. Will suddenly felt the cold wind she was referring to sweep up his boxer shorts and into his shirt. _I’ve made a huge mistake_ , he thought. A robe would’ve been nice, for his sake and possibly hers.  In fact, he was about to run upstairs to grab one when she hollered after him “Will, you’re fine, you don’t have to get dressed up for me; I grew up with brothers, you remember.”

“I’m c-cold, though,” he said from the stairs. He didn’t know whether to run for the robe or go back down and be moderately embarrassed by his state of undress and… “Excitement,” as some might delicately term it.

He heard the clink of her car keys on the kitchen countertop and decided to go for the—“Well are you going to come down and take this hug off my hands or what?” –on second thought maybe not. He went downstairs and held her tight, taking in the scent of fruit and fresh air that emanated from her wavy, black hair.

“Well there’s no doubt you’re happy to see me,” she said, laughing as Will’s face turned beet red and he ran for that robe he knew he should’ve gotten in the first place. “Where are the dogs,” she shouted, “did you get rid of them?”

His head poked around the corner at the top of the stairs, eyes firmly aimed just beyond her; “No, they’re… they’re still in my room, but… well that’s strange…” he said, looking back down the hall, “I didn’t close the door and they haven’t made a sound since you came in.”

“Maybe they’re asleep?”

“No, they were howling at the wind when you pulled up.” He disappeared again and went for that bathrobe. He came back fully covered from neck to knees in fuzzy green plaid.

“Maybe it wore them out… but how’ve you been? You never answer your phone.”

“I got rid of it. One too many prank calls and I was done. If I need a doctor, there’s one in crawling distance just down the hill.”

“Well I suppose I’ll just have to start calling you at work, then,” she grinned.

He grinned too, though he wouldn’t look at her for fear of showing his embarrassment again. “So what brings you into town? Or more specifically to my place in the middle of what looks like the beginnings of a nasty storm?”

“Well it’s an interesting story, if you’ve got time; it’s kind of long.”

“The dogs are asleep; I’ve got all the time in the world,” he smiled. Friend or not, his dogs were very high maintenance and he made sure to take care of their needs as if he were the single father of nearly a dozen children. Family before friends, and yet somehow he still felt as if Alana were part of his family as well, though he rarely saw her. He would have liked it very much if she were to become family, but it would take an act of god for him to give that desire voice.

“Well it started back when I was an undergrad: I was taking public speaking and there was this girl, Freddie Lounds; great big torrent of red hair, like a crimson waterfall, and a face like some sorority bitch with flawless skin and a different outfit every day, always in top form and highest fashion. She was getting the highest marks in class and the teacher was so impressed with her she even had the gall to print out copies and enthusiastically say ‘This is what I want in a paper! This is what I’m looking for!’ And while it was helpful, I couldn’t help but notice that her persuasive style was… well there was something troubling about it, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I thought it was just me, but I asked around and everyone else felt the same. She wrote on strange topics and always took the most difficult position; one paper against heliocentricity had the whole class in a suspension of disbelief until the teacher began to laugh and congratulate her. It was really impressive! I was going to ask her how she did it, but a few weeks before finals, she went missing and no one, not even her… three or four friends (bit of a loner, really, which I thought was strange, given her loud personality…) had heard a peep from her since.

“I’d almost completely forgotten about it when Mom told me during her monthly call that there was a therapeutic camp for stress relief and behavioral modification coming over the weekend, which she thought was immensely strange (as do I), going by the name of ‘Lounds and Lecter’s Therapeutic Retreat’ and I remembered that her father was Dr. Frederick Lounds who specialized in behavioral modification and Applied Behavior Analysis at Johns Hopkins. So I thought ‘well, two birds with one stone: maybe I can find out what happened to Miss Lounds _and_ see my old friend Will Graham.”

At that point she took his arm in hers as she used to whenever she was thinking of something they could go off and do together. Will extricated himself and got up from the couch saying: “Therapeutic Retreat? I got one of those flyer things, one attacked my door and it did _not_ say ‘Therapeutic Retreat,’ it said ‘Carnival’ and something about mirrors. You know how I feel about carnivals, Alana.”

“Well I’ve got one too and it clearly says ‘Therapeutic Retreat’ although the thought of going to a ‘reflective labyrinth’ freaks me out just as much as it does you. The whole thing sounds strange; who knows, maybe Mom was lying and she just wanted me to come down for a vacation… there was no room at the inn, so to speak, that’s why I’m here.”

“The inn? Why didn’t you—“

“No, that’s what I mean. Greg and his wife still haven’t moved out and now Joey’s girlfriend is living with them, so my room has been turned into her room and… I don’t know _where_ they thought I was going to sleep, but I didn’t stay to find out.”

“You’ll get an earful for staying here…”

Alana smirked, “Well then it’s a good thing you don’t have a phone, isn’t it? Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it; maybe. If they bother me about it enough.” Her hand peeked out from underneath the faux-fur blanket and asked him to come sit back down with her, a request with which he happily complied. “Of course, I would only stay if that were fine with you, I wouldn’t—“

“No, no, it’s fine! More than fine, really; it gets kind of lonely out here.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Holding hands beneath the blanket, they both stared straight ahead at the fireplace in silence. “So… who’s sleeping where?”

“I suppose I could take the couch down here, just send the dogs down once you’ve said hello.”

“You’re a doll, y’know that?” she said, ruffling his hair and giving him a quick peck on the cheek before she headed upstairs.

“Oh! And by the way there’s—“

“ _JESUS CHRIST, WILL, ARE YOU RUNNING A PET STORE?!”_

“—a few more than there were last time.”

Alana’s head poked out around the corner as the dogs paraded down the stairs and curled up on the couch and against the far wall without a sound. “A few? I mean I knew you’d get lonely, but… _wow_ how do you afford to take care of all these dogs on a librarian’s salary?”

Will shrugged, “few cuts here, some coupons there, it’s not so bad. I’ve given up café coffee, which wasn’t that hard to do… Fred makes awful coffee.”

She saw that there were a few dogs, large and small, starving for his attention so she bid him a good night and headed back upstairs with her bag. When she’d shut the door it suddenly occurred to them both that the dogs had paid no attention to her whatsoever, almost as if she weren’t there at all. Alana thought little of it and prepared to go to bed, but Will couldn’t help but think that they’d been acting strange all night and wished he knew what it was troubling them.

He reached inside his robe pocket and looked at the flyer again: nowhere did he see the words ‘mirror maze’ or ‘carnival’ like he had before, which he coughed up to inattention, but as he lay down to sleep the back of his mind struggled to disagree with what he’d just seen. He closed his eyes and thought no more of it, just listening to the din of clattering windchimes.

 

Outside, the howling wind barely hid the sound of cranks as shadows filled the field northeast of Green Town, just down the hill from the Graham house. Something strange and powerful walked between the Autumn grasses, wading through the shadows as movement gave way to form in the starless night. 


	2. Lounds' and Lecter's Pandaemonium Shadow Show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alana talks Will into going to the fair despite his bad history with carnivals. Despite linking arms, the two still get separated and meet the owners of the ominous Autumn fair.

 

“… so come on and get dressed!” was the first thing Will heard upon waking up the next morning, after a pile of clothes collided with his face and a dog or two pounced on him.  As he headed upstairs to shower and change, Alana repeated her spiel.

Looking out the small bathroom window, he didn’t really need her explanation: the field was filled with tents and people and clowns, which made Will shudder a bit, and with little people and young children and there was no sign that any of this had anything to do with behavior modification or stress relief; it looked exactly like a carnival.

It looked exactly like a _specific_ carnival, one that he hadn’t seen since he was a child; one whose memory caused him to drop his toothbrush and zone out. It had been just before his mother left, before his father started drinking; back when he was in elementary school. A young girl had come running out of the broken down Merry-Go-Round tent crying and she sounded and looked so familiar that Will couldn’t help but reach out to her.

He had held her hands and hugged her and told her it would all be okay, but then she called him by his name. This girl, whom he had never seen, had called him by his name and even showed kindness in her voice. “Will,” she said, “tell your father I love him. And never forget how much I love you, that I will _always_ love you.”

What did his father have to do with it, and who was she, he had protested; but she simply looked at him with tears in her eyes and looked up at the Carnival master, Mr. Dark, who apologized to Will, that the girl wasn’t feeling well and was on her way to the hospital after a nasty fall from the carousel.  

When he got home, his father was missing, but the note was still on his desk. Mama Graham had gone for good, saying all kinds of things he didn’t quite understand, but insisting that the two of them lead happy lives without her. There was no way that little girl and his mother had been the same person; Mama Graham was tall with perfectly curled auburn hair, who looked even better than those women in the magazines and on the makeup commercials. The little girl he’d seen at the carnival had curly auburn hair too, but she… she…

“Will? Are you coming or not?”

Snapping back to the present,  Will wanted to scream, to weep and wail about how life had been misery without her, that no one had lead a happy life after she left; that his dad would say he was out to go looking for her and always came home with the sheriff under his arm for support, reeking of alcohol. But he didn’t scream, he just looked down at his toothbrush and quietly responded “… no.”

“Oh, c’mon, Will, it’ll be okay. It’s not the same one as when we were kids, I know it. I thought the same thing when I saw it; there’s no mistaking those dilapidated purple and black striped tents, but they rent those things out! There’s probably at least a hundred tents at twenty carnivals across the Midwest with those same colors, and I’m pretty sure I know the guy behind this one. If you don’t want to stay, I completely understand, but I’d like to find out what happened to Freddie just for curiosity’s sake.” Silence. “Will?”

“No.”

“Now Will, you know that girl was probably suffering from—“

“She said my name, even though I’d never met her, and then Mom was missing after Dad said she’d gone looking for me.”

“What if we lock arms like we used to? I’ll just go straight to Dr. Lounds and you don’t have to do anything.”

“Well if that’s the case, what’s the point in going at all?” 

* * *

Slump-shouldered and shuffling as they walked, Will looked more annoyed than anyone ever had seen him; however, amid all the pandemonium, no one noticed him. Alana grinned ear to ear as she paid for their tickets and asked where she could find Dr. Lounds.

“Doctor Lounds?” the attendant said, passing them two dusty red tickets. “I don’t… think there’s a Doctor Lounds working with us. There’s Freddie, the Carnival Mistress, who’s probably over at the fortune writing booth by the mirror maze.”

Will squirmed at the sound of the word, but Alana squeezed his arm a little tighter, thanked the attendant and briskly walked toward the far end of the field, near the largest tent.

“What happened to ‘therapeutic retreat’? That’s false advertising.”

“Well, we’re going to go see the master manipulator herself, so we’ll both take it up with her. I have a feeling we won’t be here very long. Seems like she just got employed and dropped out; I wonder what the pay’s like… must be some serious money.”

They passed cotton candy machines and friendly clowns and a few funnel cake kiosks; the smell of food was rich in the air and made both of them a little hungry. The throng became thicker in front of the rickety Ferris wheel, which Will had already insisted he would not ride. No one seemed to be willing to budge an inch and Alana’s charming smile couldn’t even attract someone’s attention much less encourage them to move out of the way.

Just then she spotted a hole in the crowd, where the line curled around the side of a small tent. “Hold on tight, I’m gunnin’ it,” she said as she began to sprint towards it.

Will had not quite grasped her plan before she had taken off and was easily shaken loose of her. He stood between the line of blank-faced citizens and the terror-inducing purple and black canvas. He looked ahead and saw something impossible: he saw himself running with Alana, grinning back at himself, winking even, and then as soon as the doppelganger turned away, someone in the line bumped into him and he fell into the tent; through the opening and into the darkness.

“Welcome, Mr. Graham… it’s been such a long time.”

* * *

Alana turned back and looked at her old friend grinning like the Cheshire cat. “Oh good, I thought I’d lost you back there,” she said, smiling back at him. Will suggested maybe getting something to drink, insisting he’d be fine on his own, that she was right, “this isn’t the same carnival at all!”

She looked up at the cotton-ball clouds drifting through the sky at a leisurely pace; today seemed like it might turn out alright, against her fears that morning. Will came back with some popcorn and Pepsi, said he’d meet her up at the front in a little while, to go on and see Freddie without him. It was strange, given how only a moment ago he’d been clinging to her like he was trying to tear her arm off, but she figured perhaps he was feeling much better or was sneaking off back home.

A clown was kind enough to give her more specific directions to Freddie’s booth, and soon she could see that undulating thicket of crimson hair speaking to a somewhat bewildered looking older woman.

“Freddie! Here you are! You just kind of disappeared from school; we all thought you’d been murdered or something!” Alana put on her best smile, but it didn’t seem to convince Miss Lounds.

“You got my message then?” she said, looking down and writing.

Alana’s smile faded rapidly, “You mean the fake flyer my Mom got?”

“You mean you didn’t get one as well?” Freddie looked up and it seemed as if crimson dust flew out of her hair, “It’s amazing what some people will so easily write off as nothing. I’d thought you’d be more observant. I’m sure Will was. Speaking of, where is he?” she asked as she went back to writing.

 “He’s off enjoying himse—how did you know I came with him?”

“I _don’t_ know that you came with him. Did you? Sounds very out of character for such a frightened little man to come to a carnival he’s been warned of in advance. Where’ve you placed Will, Dr. Bloom?” Fredie asked.

Will, at this time, just so happened to walk up; Alana was about to say “Oh thank goodness, let’s get out of here“, when Will gave her a nice nod and continued on. As she followed him with her eyes she saw him, in a single blink, transform back into the courteous clown that had showed her the way to Freddie’s.

She felt a small tug on her trouser-leg. “What’ve you done with him?” asked a small voice that caused Alana to freeze; “What’ve you done with my son?” She didn’t have to look down to know who it was, and in fact grew stiff with terror.

“You seem a bit distressed, Alana, let me help. I can fix that.”

The young Mrs. Graham let go of her pants and Alana rushed up to her old colleague, “Yes, please!”

Alana read the note and then dropped it, walking back home like one in shock or under the power of a strong sedative.

Young Mrs. Graham picked it up and read the words on the card aloud: “You did not come with Will, you did not stay with Will. You will now return to your home as if nothing happened.” She grinned slightly and laughed that now they would have him all to themselves.

* * *

Upon hearing the voice, Will jumped back to his feet and ran back out of the tent. He had never heard it before, but some sonority in it whispered danger in his inner ear. He had expected, on exiting the tent, to be met with the exit, but instead there was more darkness. He tried this several times, each time met with the same result.

In his confusion he felt two hands force him down into a chair; they were large hands, the kind one would expect could break your neck, if they were so inclined, almost by accident. “This has been a long time coming, Will; tell me, are you surprised?”

“Just tell me what you did with my mother, Mr. Dark,” Will managed to get through his teeth, grinding with anger. He felt trapped; he _was_ trapped, and his fight-or-flight mechanism was kicking in, finding itself incapable of either.

“Oh her? She got what she always wanted: her youth back. That was Mr. Dark’s way, not mine. No, no, Mr. Graham, I’m not Mr. Dark, you don’t have to worry about your wishes backfiring on you… you have to worry about mine. Allow me to introduce myself: I’m Dr. Hannibal Lecter. You don’t know it but we’ve met before.”

“I’d remember someone like you, believe me.”

The hands squeezed his trapezius muscles a little, causing Will to writhe a little. In front of him flashed images of a thug, a robber in classical black and white stripes with a ski mask over his face, a mobster with a fedora, all in quick succession on the mirror in front of him; all of them had menacing faces, various heights, and large hands making threatening motions towards him.

“Oh, is that what you think of me? I assure you, I’m a real doctor, I’m only… slightly eccentric in my methods.”

Lab coat, suit, button down shirt with rolled up sleeves and no tie, scalpel, electrical rods, all flashing on the mirror. Will watched himself shout the question “What’s going on? What am I seeing?”

“Exactly what you want to see.” The lights flashed on and Will saw behind him a very tall man, impeccably dressed, with a stern face marked by severe features. His large hands let go, but Will found that he could not get up. He looked into the mirror and saw that even though Dr. Lecter had let him go, in the mirror he maintained a firm grip on him; his sunken eyes bored into his own as he writhed in the mirror under the pressure of those large, spindly but powerful hands.

Dr. Lecter walked around, between Will and the mirror; his face was much kinder than the man in the mirror, but maintained a malevolent severity even through his smile. “You’ve got a very vivid imagination, that’s why I need you; why the carnival needs you. This mirror maze is fueled by imagination and who better to run the mirror maze of a Halloween carnival than a scared, sad, pathetic little man who wants desperately to escape?”

“You can’t keep me here,” Will shouted, struggling to get up while Mirror Lecter held him down even more firmly.

Dr. Lecter turned around as if intrigued, “Can’t I? Let’s make a deal: if you escape, I won’t chase you. But remember: mirrors are the most honest and the most deceitful things we have; it all depends on what we want to see or are afraid to see. Now get creative,” he smiled. It was a most unpleasant smile that made Will feel as if his entrails were rearranging themselves.

 

Suddenly, Will found himself outside among the bustling crowd waiting to get on the Ferris Wheel. He began to walk into the crowd, but was rudely interrupted by his own reflection. 


End file.
